After only being back at school for just over a week I found out that my eldest daughter would have a full four days off school owing to the heritage day long weekend. Don’t get me wrong, I love spending as much time as possible with my children but it did mean that I had to come up with enough activities to keep my little ones entertained for the weekend (preferably without spending lots of time and money in shopping malls). I thought I would take advantage of the glorious spring weather and fortunately, for a change, the weather decided to play along with my plans.
Today was a particularly hot day and I thought some water play in the garden would be the perfect way to cool down. After running through a couple of ideas, my girls and I decided that making our own tin foil river would be a fun late afternoon activity.
For this activity you need:
• A roll of lightweight tin foil (I like the lightweight one because it is narrower and so the water flows better)
• A selection of bath toys and boats to send down the river
• A hose pipe (connected to a tap of course)
All you need to do is find a slight (or not so slight) slope in your garden and roll out a strip of the tin foil.
Fold up the sides of the tin foil to contain the water and then if you want, make a tin foil dam at the bottom (our dam didn’t work too well and needed to be reinforced with some buckets).
Let your children get creative and embellish the river any way that they prefer. Mine didn’t want to add too many things as they were far more interested in sending items down the river, but they did place two Barbies alongside the river as spectators.
Then the fun part: turn on the water and let your little ones send down their bath toys. Mine had selected boats, rubber ducks and some plastic sea creatures as well as a few seed pods and leaves for good measure.
Once they had enough of the river my eldest daughter decided to use the hose pipe to blast the various toys with water (which also ended up blasting holes in the tin foil) but resulted in a lot of laughter.
Ask anyone who knows me well and they will tell you how much I love winter time. The crisp, frosty mornings and layers of warm, cuddly clothes really do make me happy (I know, completely nuts). This has changed a bit though since I have had children and days like today make me really appreciate the amazing spring and summer seasons that we have here in South Africa.
This was a wonderful way to spend a warm and sunny afternoon and I so enjoyed watching my children get creative with their little river.